The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (21 page)

I shook my head. “It's not your job. Let him call his own wife.”

“He refuses. He says she's not even expecting him.”

“Because . . .?”

“Because he's got her trained to think that he works around the clock.”

“Every night?”

“Enough. Whenever he feels like it. Plus their house is in Marblehead, so he can use that as an excuse—too far to drive home once he's called in for a fake emergency.”

After many rings, and after formal opening remarks addressed to what must have been the answering machine, Mrs. Hastings picked up. Sylvie started over—name, rank, and careful introduction of the phrase “Your husband's in the hospital.”

“He didn't want us to make a fuss,” she explained, “so he'll be furious with me for calling.” There was a short pause, after which Sylvie restated, “Schwartz. Sylvie Schwartz . . . No, internal medicine . . . different service. . . . No, probably just bed rest, but time will tell.” Mrs. Hastings must have alleged that her husband was actually a pussycat, or that his bark was worse than his bite, because Sylvie then murmured, “That's a side of him we residents seldom see.”

We walked back through the tunnel together. I asked if she'd like a cup of tea, but she said no. Quite the hideous night, and now she was going to change the sheets and try to forget her own lapses in sexual judgment.

I said, “Maybe the MRI will show he has a brain tumor, which is causing rash behavioral changes and making him worse than usual.”

“Wouldn't that be nice,” said Sylvie. “Unfortunately, the test was limited to the lumbosacral spine.”

I asked if she thought he was going to find a way to punish us for this.

“For what? Getting him help? Escorting his dead weight down eleven floors and into the hands of an MRI maven?”

“Not that. For talking back. For shining a light into the film library. For reminding him he has a wife. For tossing his cell phone onto his testicles.”

Sylvie threw her arm around my shoulders. “We're untouchable,” she said. “We are a walking class-action suit. So stop worrying about punishment. He's the one who should be nervous. If he looks at you cross-eyed, he's dead meat.”

Dead meat.
I liked that expression. I filed it away.

21.
Social Work

LEO WAS LATE, BUT NOT EGREGIOUSLY: TEN MINUTES AND
counting, which I'd learned from Ray to view as a grace period in the manner of a restaurant hostess. When the knock came at eleven minutes past the half hour, I opened the door, smiling hospitably as if he'd been on the dot—to find Meredith in a voluminous black coat and black felt sombrero, fanning her flushed face with red leather gloves.

“Ready?” she asked, collecting me with the professional smile of a tour leader.

I asked where Leo was, and she answered, “Double-parked downstairs.”

I said, “I didn't know Leo had a car.”

“It's mine. Sorry we're late. We were talking and lost track of time.”

I asked if I was supposed to come with her, or was she canceling the plans I'd made with Leo?

Meredith frowned. “Did we get the time or day wrong? Sunday at seven-thirty, correct?”

“Correct,” I said.

“Are you bringing your friend? Ray, is it?”

I said no. Because, frankly, I hadn't anticipated . . . an odd number. My understanding was that she'd be working.

“Leo told you I was working?”

I said, “I must have misunderstood.”

She opened her coat to display her beeper on her thickening waist. “I have two mothers past their due dates, so he was probably expecting another interrupted night.” She smiled. “Poor Leo. It's awfully hard to get my undivided attention. I'm glad he feels comfortable enough to make plans with his women friends when I'm working.”

Later Sylvie would tell me that she hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but that the patronizing tone wafting across the hall got her attention. At that juncture—as Meredith expressed gratitude for the charity of Leo's friends—Sylvie threw on something presentable, and invented a reason to open her front door.

“Hey,” she said. “Anyone seen my Sunday paper? I never should have left it outside my door all day. People think you're working and won't miss it.”

I introduced them, then waited for Sylvie's objective to announce itself.

Meredith murmured, “Leo is going to wonder what happened to us.”

Sylvie turned to me and winked. “So, Alice,” she said heartily, despite the coat over my arm and the keys in my hand, “want to order a double order of moo shu something?”

I said, “I'm sorry, but I'm going out for dinner.”

“You and Meredith?”

“And Leo,” I said.

“So that's three, right?”

I said yes, so it seemed.

“How about a foursome?” Sylvie asked.

“It's fine with me,” I said.

“Do you know Leo?” Meredith asked.

“Why, no, I don't,” said Sylvie, “but I like the sound of him.”

“We really have to run,” said Meredith.

“Get your coat, Syl,” I said.

FROM THE BACKSEAT
, Sylvie regaled her new acquaintances with the tale of Dr. Hastings's unfortunate night. I marveled at her ability to paint him as the villain and herself as the villainess and—a mere twenty-four hours later—extract its anecdotal value.

“But it must have been painful for you to see him for what he was,” said Meredith. “I'm having a hard time believing that you're taking this so well.”

“I have such bad taste in men,” Sylvie explained, “that the only way to look back on these unfortunate liaisons without hating myself is to hate the former object of my affection.”

“Sounds healthy,” said Leo.

“How old are you?” Meredith asked.

“Twenty-nine in June,” said Sylvie. “Doesn't that sound like I'm on the verge of something precarious?”

“Were you ever married?”

“Actually not,” said Sylvie. She nudged me with her elbow. “But I've had a lot of honeymoons.”

“Isn't Dr. Hastings in his fifties?” asked Meredith. “And married?”

“He told me he was separated,” said Sylvie. “Isn't that odious?”

“And he pursued her for many months,” I added.

“Meredith pursued me for months until I caved,” said Leo.

“He's kidding,” said Meredith. “Because if anyone did the pursuing in this relationship, it was he.”

“We got that,” said Sylvie. “Even from back here we sensed his gently mocking tone.”

“Leo doesn't like to be serious. He thinks everyone, including me, is too earnest. He'd like it if we all made jokes twenty-four hours a day.”

“What an insensitive fellow you are, Mr. Frawley,” said Sylvie.

If the appellation “Mr. Frawley” sounded a note of intimacy in my tin ear, I could only assume that Meredith heard it, too. She took off her big black sombrero and placed it in her lap.

Leo said, “Alice? You're quiet back there.”

I said, “I let Sylvie do the talking when we're together.”

“She's an excellent audience,” said Sylvie. “And you should have seen her going
mano a mano
with Hastings.”

“No!”

“Absolutely. Tell Leo what you said to him.”

“When?”

“When I was out looking for the gurney. You know . . .” She mouthed, The wallet.

“I opened his wallet and there was a picture of his wife—”

“Tell him what you said.”

“I said that his wife looked a little sad.”

Sylvie slapped the back of the driver's seat. “Isn't that great? I couldn't have done that because it would have been seen as sarcastic and belligerent, but Alice can say those things with an absolutely straight face and sound heartfelt.”

I said, “I was heartfelt. I mean, I wanted to shame him, but at the same time I did think she looked a little sad.”

“Was it a formal photograph or a candid one?” Meredith asked.

Leo snickered.

“Was that a humorous question?” Meredith asked.

“Probably not an intentionally humorous one,” said Leo.

“Case in point,” said Meredith. “Everything has to be a joke.”

I said, “She was wearing what appeared to be a wedding dress.”

“Which is kind of sweet when you think about it,” said Leo.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if they're both in their fifties, he's been carrying it in his wallet for twenty or twenty-five years, transferring it each time he bought a new wallet.”

“Those are the guys to watch out for,” said Sylvie. “The guys with the gallery of family photos on their office étagère.”

“Do they have children?” asked Meredith.

Sylvie said, “He never mentioned any.”

“Because I would think that the minute you had a child, that's the face you'd want to see when you open your wallet.”

“I find that an illuminating statement,” said Leo.

Sylvie said, “They probably had children, and the state took them away.”

Leo laughed and gave the steering wheel a thump. Meredith asked why she would say that.

“Another embittered joke,” said Sylvie. “And a commentary on his cruel and unusual treatment of young people under his tutelage.”

“She means me,” I said.

“How about his sexual harassment of
me
?” said Sylvie. “Because even if you factor in the consenting-adult stuff, he started it.”

“You're twenty-nine,” said Meredith, evenly, pleasantly. “He's an attending in surgery, not medicine. So I'm not sure I see where the sexual harassment comes in.”

“You are one-hundred-percent correct,” said Sylvie. “You are so correct that I'm hanging my head in shame back here, and mentally composing a letter of reference to his next girlfriend.”

“I didn't mean to sound critical,” said Meredith.

I jumped in to add, “He's older, he's married, he's a full professor, he's powerful, so whether or not Sylvie thinks she's having run-of-the-mill consensual relations—”

“Meredith is saying it takes two to tango,” said Sylvie. “One of us needed the strength of character to say a firm ‘No, thank you.' ”

Leo made a great show of hitting buttons on the silent radio. “Where is this stuff coming from? Am I tuned to the women's talk channel? I can't seem to shut it off.”

“Leo doesn't like to discuss anything too earnestly, especially if it involves feelings,” Meredith explained.

“He's a guy!” said Sylvie.

Meredith said, “I
really
dislike generalizing about men and women. I bend over backward, especially in my profession, to avoid thinking in terms of what are male and female behaviors.”

Sylvie said, “Delivering babies? I would think that would be the bottom line, genderwise—I mean, in a good way—”

“Biologically and anatomically,” I added.

“I mean, there are divisions, period. Unalterable ones. Ones that require a uterus and Fallopian tubes,” Sylvie added.

I was seated directly behind Meredith, who straightened her shoulders but didn't answer. Her posture seemed to be saying, Don't patronize me, doctor.

Leo said, “If I put a pink cap on a boy baby the father usually goes a little ape-shit.”

“Do you do that to make a point?” asked Sylvie.

“I never do anything to make a point,” said Leo.

I corrected him—he who had rehearsed me to deliver stinging ultimata to Dr. Kennick; he who made me revoke my letter of resignation. He who'd been grievance chairman of the nurses' union for two terms—

“Really?” asked Sylvie. “You were grievance chair?”

“Someone's got to do it,” he said.

“I was cochair of professional development in the union,” said Meredith.

“Cool,” said Sylvie. “Is that how you met?”

“No,” said Leo. “Our tenures never overlapped.”

“I was his sister-in-law's midwife,” said Meredith.

“And Uncle Leo was working that night, so of course I popped in.”

“Every twenty minutes,” said Meredith.

“I was nervous,” he said. “It was Christopher's first.”

I could see Meredith didn't like that—invoking the father's name instead of the mother's—but she turned her face toward the window, aborting another debate. I hadn't seen this side of Leo, his rising to the occasion for the sake of an audience, his willfully striving to get someone's goat.

AND NOW THE
four of us were seated at Pho Saigon, the team of Meredith and Leo opposite the team of Sylvie and me. Finally, Meredith excused herself with a pregnant woman's shrug—uterus impinging on bladder, it reminded us; indulge me. As soon as she was ten feet away, Leo leaned forward and said, “I couldn't help it. She just assumed she was invited, so I couldn't tell her to stay home.”

“It's fine,” I said.

“So let me jump in and ask while she's out of earshot,” said Sylvie. “Are you in love with this woman?”

Leo looked up toward the passage that led to the ladies' room, then down at the menu. “I'd have to say no.”

“But now she's pregnant, and you're a reliable and responsible kind of guy?”

Leo said, “I seem to have this conversation every time I sit around a table.”

I asked if he'd had this conversation around his mother's table yet.

“You don't seem to realize what that involves,” he said, “or how it would upset my mother and several of her female children.”

“In this day and age?” asked Sylvie.

“She's a devout Catholic,” said Leo, “so her take on it would be personal anguish over the fact that I won't be with her for all eternity because of my sins.”

“And you believe that?” asked Sylvie.

“It doesn't matter what I believe. It's my mother's belief that's going to drive her to her bed.”

I said, “I've met his mother. She doesn't strike me as the type that falls apart too easily.”

Leo looked up as there was movement in the restroom alcove: Meredith rejoining us.

“Everyone's looking very solemn,” she said.

“We were discussing my mother,” said Leo.

“I see,” said Meredith. She opened her menu and appeared to read every classification conscientiously.

Leo turned to me. “So, Alice? How's the boyfriend?”

I answered, borrowing a phrase from modern life as overheard in the cafeteria, “Oh . . . Ray and I are having fun together. I take it one day at a time.”

Meredith looked up. “Is he good company? Which is to say . . . do you find a lot of common ground?”

“She means,” said Leo, smiling as if he were about to say something obliging, “that he seems not too bright.”

Sylvie laughed. Meredith said, “Leo!”

I said, “Maybe you don't know him as well as you think you do. Or maybe a person can be good company for reasons that have nothing to do with IQ.”

“I think Alice is in love,” said Meredith.

“Let me answer that,” said Sylvie. “Alice is finding something in Ray that isn't obvious to the outside observer—me included.”

I said, “People have noticed improvements in me.”

“Such as?” asked Meredith.

“I'm getting by on less sleep. I'm observedly less apprehensive at work. I sometimes say what's on my mind. I'm getting a television.”

“You're dressing up,” said Leo, and flicked one of his own earlobes to acknowledge my new ornamentation.

“So—” Sylvie added cheerfully, “it looks like I'm the only one who needs a boyfriend.”

Leo blinked comically, as if picking up the strains of something faint. “That radio call-in show?” he said. “I keep hearing female voices asking for romantic advice.” His head-swiveling attracted the attention of a waiter, who called from two tables over, “Be right there.”

“Three Vietnamese beers?” Leo asked us.

“Sure,” said Sylvie and I.

“Do you have milk?” Meredith called across to the waiter. “I don't see it on the menu, and I'm pregnant.”